ERP Product Suite Development Of SAP And Oracle A Comparison
Many manufacturers have benefited from the ability of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to smooth workflow, speed processing time, lower costs, and reduce errors. However, many companies have also been disappointed, experiencing unrealized expectations, cost and time overruns, and diverted management time on ERP Product Suite Development of SAP and Oracle a Comparison.
ERP systems evolved from 1970s-era systems that helped manufacturers identify component and material requirements and their availability. They've now become an organization's information lifeline -- integrating a variety of functions including sales and distribution, planning, purchasing, production, cost accounting, and finance. Some ERP Product Suite Development of SAP and Oracle a Comparison also include engineering management, finite scheduling, and enterprise information system capabilities.
The power and benefit of ERP systems lies in their ability to "mirror" or "model," in electronic form, a company's core and supportive processes. They provide a global view of an organization, and help to manage and utilize company resources, while minimizing duplication and potential for errors. ERP Product Suite Development of SAP and Oracle a Comparison accomplish this objective by "modeling" business processes. For example, an ERP provides the capability to track a sales order from the order desk to production planning, purchasing, production, warehousing, shipping and accounts receivable (referred to as the "order to payment" process). An ERP will also help identify the impact of the order on other departments -- for example, purchasing and production -- to determine additional material and capacity requirements to fulfill the order.
Two significant management challenges must be addressed to achieve the benefits of an ERP system: identifying core processes and changing the core processes. Identifying core processes most companies are structured functionally and processes are cross-functional. Companies have, for example, "material managers" and "production managers" who are focused on their piece of the process and its optimization. There is no manager of "order to payment" process who is interested in optimizing the entire process rather than just one piece of it. The benefit of an ERP is its ability to optimize processes. Before an ERP system is selected, it is critical for the company to identify and manage its core processes, based on a set of critical success factors -- activities which a company must do well to differentiate itself and hence be competitive -- such as "time to market," "service level," and "product quality." Changing core processes ERP implementations are fraught with significant challenges because of this second management issue. The integrated design of ERP systems means that some processes will change upon implementation. For example, with typical departmental computer systems, each department can control when and how the system runs. This is not possible with ERP Product Suite Development of SAP and Oracle a Comparison. A sales order, for example will affect the business functions and databases in production planning, purchasing, warehousing, shipping and accounts receivable. If there is a problem with this order, departments can no longer "stop" their system to correct the errors. They must develop alternate ways of adjusting plans, material requirements, production, inventory, and accounts in order to effectively run an ERP.
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